zerophone

Statement

Hi! I'm Arsenijs, and I'm working on ZeroPhone. I'm doing it because I believe we need more control over smartphones that we've come to rely on, over our personal data that we give out, and over our purchasing choices (to not be practically forced to support vendors that make unethical decisions). To try and change the current situation, I'm making an open, hacker-friendly phone that wil give you full control over its hardware and software. It's a long way, though, and I'm trying to dedicate as much time as possible to this project, since I see the field of mobile phones as one where we can actually make a change, working together.

One of prominent problems for me is that I don't have any kind of passive income. There's going to eventually be crowdfunding, but I have plenty of things to do before I can launch it, and I'd rather not spend crowdfunding money on funding my own expenses (even if it counts as paying a wage to myself), since I'd like to make sure the crowdfunding has as much of an impact as possible. I accept freelance jobs here and there, but it takes time that I would gladly spend working on ZeroPhone. Furthermore, I have to do hardware prototyping, where testing solutions to problems and experimenting means having to spend money - and taking up place in our hackerspace doesn't come free either (currently, it does for me, but I want to change the situation since our hackerspace is underfunded).

So, if you like what I'm doing, support me here - so you can help me and other people that work on ZeroPhone. Together, we can make a difference when it comes to smartphones and how we use them.